Waiting For You
by Heather Cat
Summary: Post-Meteor, Elena arrives in the doorway of one who was once an enemy with words left to say and memories to reconcile. Light shounen ai implied. [One shot]


Waiting for you  
  
Your gentle voice I hear  
Your words echo inside me  
You said "You long for me, that you love me"  
And I want to see you too, feels just like I'm falling  
Is there nothing I can do, wonder if you hear my calling  
  
I'm here and waiting for you  
Where are you, I can't find you  
I'm here and waiting for you  
I'll wait forever for you  
- Waiting For You - Live at Heaven's Night - (Silent Hill 4)  
  
"He loved you. Very much. I bet you didn't know that."  
  
The voice was faintly bitter, but all traces of enmity had been erased by exhaustion. The dark evening filtered through the open window, bringing traces of the warm city night on the breeze. Dark orange curtains rustled slightly, framing a dark blue sky dotted by the occasional star.  
  
Honey colored light spilled across the dark green sofa from the small lamp, giving the room warmth she had never imagined to find here. She watched, eyes burning from things repressed and fatigue, lids heavy. Still, there was a sharpness to her that was sharpened by the darkness and the warm, almost familiar room. She blinked, rubbing suddenly at her eyes with the back of her wrist. When she looked up, a second pair of dark eyes – crimson – were staring out towards the cityscape.  
  
"Loved me...?"  
  
The words were faint, almost a whisper, almost lost in the murmurs of the night below.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Brown eyes met red in the still evening.  
  
The sudden sound of laughter, loud music across the street and cheering filtered up from across the street. Sitting on the green couch with a wool blanket around her shoulders, Elena looked away.  
  
"Why are you here?"  
  
The words surprised her. Much like the strangely comforting room, she had not expected to be taken in, or the kindness. Especially not the kindness. She studied the cream colored mug she held in her hands, and the warm steam that rose through the already warm air. She considered sipping the hot chocolate but instead turned back to the eyes.  
  
"I didn't know where else to go."  
  
"The others...? Rude? Reno?"  
  
She did not answer and the silence stretched on for more moments than she could count.  
  
Then, a barely perceptible nod. Unreal red eyes turned away again as if contemplating the shadows that decorated the oak floor and the walls.  
  
"He always used to talk about you, you know. Before..." She grimaced before drinking from the steaming cup. She noted with satisfaction the pleasantly uncomfortable numbness the hot drink left in her mouth.  
  
"I just... couldn't think of anywhere else. The Ancient girl was like a sister to him, and me... well." She laughed, quietly. "No, it was always you. You were all he talked about, thought about. I just barely got out of Midgar alive, and all I could remember walking through those ruins was his voice, talking about you, saying your name, telling me silently what I didn't want to hear..."  
  
Her voice hitched, and she looked away too, although carefully to a different part of the room. When she looked back it was with studied indifference.  
  
"You didn't have to let me in, you know."  
  
The music and applause seemed distant in the wide blue night.  
  
"I know."  
  
"Then why did you? You're supposed to hate me."  
  
The calm quiet of the night seemed all pervading here. The noise outside seemed a world away. The smell of chocolate filled the room, adding to the familiarity.  
  
"Because... I do not." The voice was quiet, but strong. "Because I knew you. All of you. Because he... would have wanted me to."  
  
"Why did you tell all those lies!?"  
  
Elena didn't realize she'd spoken until the words had already escaped, slipping into the quiet to jar in the silence. She flushed.  
  
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... But why did you do it? You belonged with us! But still you chose to go with them, to help them fight against us. And even then you spun them webs of lies and came back to us again and again! I can't... I don't..."  
  
"How did you know to find me here?"  
  
A pause, a fresh breath of air that had been held too long.  
  
"...He told me that when it was all settled you would come here. It's where your heart always was."  
  
A soft laugh, gone almost as soon as it was born. The night swallowed it, so only the memory of it remained in the circle of soft, yellow light.  
  
"He loved me? I'm sorry. I just find it hard to believe, that's all. He knew... It seems so long ago now. He laughed at me, back then, when I told him I was in love. He said I was a fool to wait forever for someone who would never love me back."  
  
A shake of the head.  
  
Suddenly, Elena was angry, and she did not know why. At the sound of the gentle, disbelieving laughter a part of her broke.  
  
"Fine! I didn't ask for your hospitality!" In a second the blanket lay discarded and twisted on the floor and she was standing, eyes blazing, tiredness forgotten. The blue suit melded with the darkness, creases highlighted by the lamp so she looked more a shadow than human. Her blonde hair was snarled, clothes tattered and a smear of dirt mixed with blood painting her face; she looked wild as she felt.  
  
"I'll go out the same way I came in. Don't bother getting up, I'll see myself to the door." She turned to leave, hesitated, realized she still held the small cream mug of hot chocolate. Setting it down with an angry snap, she turned back a last time.  
  
"I spoke at his funeral, damn you! While you hid away with AVALANCHE and dreamed pretty dreams. I had to watch them lower him into the earth knowing no one would care or remember him. No matter how he felt about you, or you about him, you were family! There were only three of us there that day, when you should have been standing beside us!"  
  
Crimson eyes never looked away as the other slowly stood as well. There was the calm acceptance of the abandonment she had known would be there, but she could also see regret. It seemed the world would not rest until it had run out of surprises.  
  
"Sometimes... we have to do things we don't want to do. And others, we don't do things we want to so others won't know we want to do them."  
  
Elena stared, the blue night a screen behind her.  
  
"Forgive me. I have been broken these seven years. We spoke many nights, he and I. Those lonely rooftop vigils when he sent all of you away, we would sit in the shadows and talk as if nothing had changed between us. I died to the world to escape the life of a Turk and the memory of the woman who broke me. And as a dead man, I am the best keeper of secrets there is. Elena... If he loved me... You were his pride, to see you grow and flourish as a Turk. You were his real light."  
  
She crumbled as her legs gave way, almost seeming to move in slow motion, and would have fallen had not strong arms caught her up and wrapped around her.  
  
"We were going to go to dinner after the mission..."  
  
She cried, then, completely broken as a tall dark man wrapped a dark red cloak around the both of them, his golden claw glittering gently in the light. He just held her as she wept for the first and last time, each wracking sob burning her in a way she had forgotten was possible.  
  
A long while after, when she had stopped, they just stood on the edge of the light. In another reality far beyond this room, somewhere, the music played on.  
  
She smiled then, because crying did not solve a thing and the raw hurt in her chest would not leave her peace for the many long hours ahead. But mostly she smiled because here in these arms was warm too. She hadn't counted on that either.  
  
The warm night air stirred dark orange curtains, and Elena knew she was feeling dark, serious eyes watching her. And this time, the aching, haunting familiarity didn't bother her in the slightest.  
  
A/N - Odd. Yes, I am suggesting that Vincent lied to everyone, Sephiroth was created seven years ago and Cloud is a lot more fucked up than we thought. Not seriously though. Call it AU if you like. It just amuses me not to. I will admit to blatantly stealing a line from The Village - although you'll have to see it to know which one. Definitely a different piece for my thirtieth post though, and an homage to Elena because I neglect her so sorely. Cheers. 


End file.
